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17 June 2022: Digital broker Policy Powerhouse has launched the UK’s fastest and simplest holiday let insurance offering, powered by WhenFresh property data, meaning that holiday business owners can now obtain competitive quotes and buy buildings and contents insurance for single or multiple properties, in just a few clicks.

There are close to 200,000 UK properties in the holiday rental market but, with relatively few insurers offering this type of cover, it is a market that has long been poorly served, and shopping around for competitive quotes has, until now, been a long-winded, arduous process. 

Fast, easy Holiday Let insurance – powered by WhenFresh property data

The new Policy Powerhouse platform changes this by asking the owner to answer only a handful of questions, with all necessary property attribute and risk data instantly delivered ‘behind the scenes’ by property data specialists WhenFresh, based simply on the address. The result is a fully online service that is considerably faster and simpler than ever before.  Better still, owners can also insure one or more properties on a single policy, with a single policy fee and attractive discounts for multiple property cover.

CEO of Policy Powerhouse, John Bibby says, “We’re really excited to launch what we consider to be the most intuitive insurance platform on the market, which will transform the frankly rather tedious Holiday let insurance buying process, making it much faster and easier to obtain competitive pricing and a choice of coverage level to suit holiday let owners”

He goes on to explain, “Having been in the insurance market for most of our lives, we saw a gap in 4 critical areas of insurance: cost, speed of purchase, the ability to insure multiple properties on a single policy and range of products, particularly where requirements don’t quite fit the typical mould. This is where Policy Powerhouse comes in.”

The UK based digital broker, founded in 2021, aspires to bring non-standard insurance products within easy, fast, and cost-effective reach of buyers to save them time and money. Taking the hassle out of the insurance-buying process and delivering straightforward claims processes, with enhanced underwriting data and performance is core to their business model.

“Typically for non-standard insurance products like holiday let properties, owners need to hunt around for providers that offer the right protection, then undergo lengthy phone calls / processes to obtain a quote – which can ultimately end up in rejection. It can be very frustrating when you know what you want in an insurance product, but you aren’t able to purchase it easily,” explains Bibby.

Because holiday let properties can be left unoccupied for longer than 30 days and have multiple short-term tenancies, they are seen as a higher risk than standard home insurance. This means that standard home insurance policies typically do not provide adequate cover, which is where Policy Powerhouse’s holiday lets insurance fits.

The partnership with property data specialists, WhenFresh, is fundamental to making this new quote platform so fast and easy to use – as the property owner only needs to enter the address and all necessary property and risk related questions are instantly ‘pre-answered’ within the Policy Powerhouse platform, by pulling in data from the WhenFresh API. This removes the need for owners to complete lengthy, complex forms, making the process of obtaining a quote much faster and simpler.

WhenFresh CEO Mark Cunningham adds: “It’s great to see Policy Powerhouse innovating in the holiday let insurance space.  WhenFresh already provides property data prefill services to many leading home insurers, to shorten and simplify the quote and buy process for consumers.  So, it is refreshing to support this non-standard holiday let insurance platform, especially as these owners often live remotely from their holiday let properties.  For some of the more challenging questions insurers might ask, the owner might otherwise have to make a lengthy trip to the coast, the Lake District or wherever it is located, to physically check the property! This is a great example of how smart technology and WhenFresh property data can be brought together to massively simplify and speed-up what was a complex and painful experience for buyers.”

Holiday let insurance launched in June 2022 and is the second product brought to market by Policy Powerhouse. Their first insurance product, Cancel Cover, offers holiday let owners protection against the risk of guests cancelling their bookings, allowing them to refund guests up to 95% of costs incurred and reclaim that refund via Cancel Cover. Holiday let owners can therefore compete with Online Travel Agents and protect their financial position.

COO of Policy Powerhouse, Steve Dixon, has worked on the idea behind the platform. “We envisaged a central platform where customers can manage all their insurance policies with ease, and also log their holiday booking for Cancel Cover protection. Insurance doesn’t stop when a customer has purchased, it is also about making the claims process as fast and easy as possible to reduce admin time.”

Policy Powerhouse Holiday Let Insurance is Powered by WhenFresh property data

Dixon goes on the explain, “Efficient use of API’s mean that the customer experience is fast and frictionless, and our insurer partners gain enhanced insight into the risks that they accept. Our Holiday lets product is supported by A+ rated insurance capacity. Whilst we have focused upon making the platform as intuitive as possible, we recognise that some customers will need additional support, so all lines of communication are open at Policy Powerhouse, including via live chat, instant messaging, email, and phone. We are always there to support our customers and prospective customers”.

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Try the WhenFresh API Mini-Demo to get a flavour of the attribute, risk, peril, environmental, geospatial, climate and other data that WhenFresh can provide about virtually any residential property in the UK.

About WhenFresh  –  www.WhenFresh.com

WhenFresh is the UK’s leading supplier of residential property data to Banks, Home Insurers, Utilities, The Public Sector and other Big Data users, including 8 of the top 10 UK banks and the Bank of England. 

WhenFresh combines its own proprietary datasets with 100s of best-in-class private and public data sources in one place to create the UK’s ‘Residential Property Data Supermarket’.  Via a single, simple integration, the WhenFresh API provides users with instant access individual, address-level property attribute, risk, peril, topological, geospatial, environmental, climate, market movement, ownership, title, and remote valuations data, on a pay-as-you-go basis.

In addition to providing raw data items, WhenFresh develops tailor-made, data-driven decisioning solutions and Apps for its clients and was awarded Data Enabling Solution of the Year at the DataIQ Awards 2021, as well as featuring prominently in several prestigious Top 50/Top 100 Insurtech and Fintech reports.

About Policy Powerhouse  –  www.PolicyPowerhouse.com

Policy Powerhouse is a digital broker, offering uniquely tailored cover for non-standard requirements in the property, business, and leisure sectors. Combining more flexible, bespoke policies with advanced insurance technology, Policy Powerhouse’s next generation platform allows customers to reduce their time to obtain cover to just a few minutes. 

With an executive & advisory board comprising many years’ experience at companies including AXA, RSA, AIG, Towergate and CETA, the business model constitutes a rapidly expanding product range, each with unique market offerings to fill gaps in the market. Cancel Cover and Holiday let Insurance are available with further non-standard insurance products being launched in 2022. 

Customers are at the centre of the business model, ensuring that both the product and the service meets our customers very specific needs is fundamental.

The addition of MyShawbrook bridging will “streamline the entire bridging application process”, according to the lender.

Brokers will be able to access instant integrated valuation and credit-backed heads of terms. They can also instruct solicitors during the agreement in principle stage.

The portal has a maximum loan calculator so brokers can get a better understanding of how much Shawbrook can lend to customers, even if there is more than one loan requested.

Alongside the integration of WhenFresh property data, Shawbrook’s portal also has integrations with Experian, Companies House and other sources, which it says will reduce the need to input extra data and documentation. Read more…

“This development is another way to showcase the investment Shawbrook is making in tech and our aim to make the offer process as smooth and straightforward as possible for customers and broker partners.”

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This podcast features highlights and key insights from the recent Instech London property risk event at The Steel Yard in London.

‘Property Risk – What’s New and What Works?’ brought together experts in flood forecasting, digital twins, rebuild costs, remote assessment and more, to discuss new data and analytics solutions that are helping insurers understand the physical characteristics and risks of properties.

The episode begins with Robin in conversation with Todd Rissel, Chairman and CEO of event sponsors e2Value, and is followed by interviews with: 

Talking points include: 

If you would like to hear more about the work our guests and their companies are doing, click the links above to visit their respective InsTech London member profiles. Further podcast episodes are also available featuring Todd Rissel (Podcast 153), Mark Cunningham (Podcast 111), Archipelago (Podcast 145), and Bob Frady (Podcast 135).

Now part of the MagiClick family, Dock9 is a leading digital solutions agency for the financial services sector, building next generation digital products exclusively for visionary financial services brands. Dock9 CEO Mark Lusted hosts their insightful Tech Talks series and for Episode 17 (July 2021) interviewed WhenFresh CEO & co-Founder Mark Cunningham, discussing about advances in accessible property data and automated decisioning in mortgage-lending and insurance.

To view a sample of some of the property attribute, risk, peril, topological, geospatial, environmental, climate, market and valuations data that leading mortgage lenders and insurers are commonly calling from the WhenFresh API to support their automated decisioning processes, please try the new MINI-DEMO below.

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